"Él puso el libro sobre la mesa."
Translation:He put the book on the table.
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I think the root verb, poner, is just irregular. With a lot of verbs the accent helps distinguish between first person present and third person preterite (e.g. hablo & habló), but the first person present form of poner is pongo.
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Puso is the third person singular past tense of poner. It's a grave word (the tonic syllable is second to last) ending in a vowel, so it doesn't have an accent.
He put the book upon the table - is wrong? ...upon does not mean the same as sobre?
I am going to subscribe to a theory that there may be several ways the same sense may be conveyed in English, and that it may not be possible to cover all possible ways by a "code" or a "database". So whenever it is Spanish to English. I let it slide ... :) ... as long as I got the general sense of what is being intended by sentence - without a context.
So I plod on until I can collect enough flying hours that will allow me to hold a somewhat amusing to a native, perhaps, but a conversation nevertheless. A "conversation" may be the time to trim the exact meaning and application of usage of words and phrases. :)
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Haha you are spot on! Love the attitude! Because at the end of the day, we're trying to learn a new language... so if we're able to translate successfully, regardless of it the app gets it right, then we're making progress in the right direction!
I can't wait for the day where I can hold a solid conversation! (even if I am speaking partially broken Spanish haha)
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Why in this sentence do we say Él puso instead of Él "SE" puso, but in the translation of "he put the shirt on" we do use El "SE" puso? I don't get it, thanks in advance for help
I wish they'd mix it up a bit, I'm doing past tenses over & over before I move on so I 100% know it first but the questions are the same every time so you recognise the question; not necessarily the verb.
Thank you Luis. I just encountered tabla for the first time in one of Duo"s sentences.
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"Tabla" can also mean table in the sense of "the periodic table" or "table of contents", but not in the sense of "we ate dinner at the table".
Excellent. So the plank, board, or periodic tables relate more to a "Tablet" in a sense. At least that is how I will remember the different. Muchas Gracias. (Psst. Duo, I think when I encountered it today, it was using Tabla like a table on which to eat. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so).
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A more correct English translation should also be accepted: "He put the book onto the table." In English, the prepositions in and on show location, whereas the prepositions into and onto show direction.
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I totally agree, but Duo doesn't seem to be aware of these "nuances" and so it's probably best to go with something right-ish in order to get to the other side. Sometimes, I spend more time wondering how Duo would like me to phrase things in English than I need for the Spanish.
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Would it also be correct to say "...puso el libro sobre a la mesa"? If not, why?
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'a' is a preposition and has no place in that sentence. It would be like saying "He put the book on to the table".
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"Sobre" means "on top of", and with the "a" it would translate to "on top of at/to the table"... you might be thinking of the personal "a" which has no english equivalent, but the personal "a" is only used persons or pets and is not used for a table
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What if you are putting something above the table? Would you still use sobre?
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Why Sobre and not arriba? A friend told me "sobre" is like "put it over the table", and arriba is "put it on the table". is that right?
Then, another duo sentence i think went like "Ella puso los platos en la mesa" and they translated it to "she put the plates on the table". Why didn't they use "sobre" there? Since both sentences imply someone "putting" something "on a" table. Is it cause los platos is plural? Im confused.
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"sobre" means (as an adverb) "on top of/over/above". "en" means "on/in/at".
"arriba" means "up", and by itself it can only be used as a noun. However "arriba de" for example means "above/over", but is a lot more colloquial.
"en la mesa", "sobre la mesa" and "arriba de la mesa" ("arriba la mesa" is grammatically unsound) both mean "on/on top of/over the table", but the former two sound more proper.
The object being singular/plural has nothing to do with it.
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What about "...encima de la mesa?" Wouldn't that also work in this case?
Part of language is context. You have some really stupid sentences. You could really do better.